What you should have read recently

Ann Lovett: Silence that will never be broken - Caroline O’Doherty 

"Everyone wanted to know how a girl from a family of nine siblings in a town of barely a 1,000 people could have carried a baby to term without anyone finding out, if indeed her pregnancy was the secret the community claimed it to be.

Questions were asked about what kind of society made a bright girl feel unable to ask for help or undeserving of support at what must have been the most frightening time of her life."

The politics of black hair - Emma Dabiri  

"It can feel pretty frustrating that white supremacy has bequeathed a legacy in which, for many black women, simply wearing our hair in its own natural state can become a complex and politicised act. At the same time - despite the connection between said supremacy and the relationship that many black women have to our hair - most white people demonstrate absolutely no idea about the everyday maintenance of Afro hair, let alone its politics."

Woman-hating by any other name - Meghan Murphy

"There’s an air of superiority from those who busily seek to ruin and silence other feminists: “We’re doing it right; she’s doing it wrong.” By pointing our fingers elsewhere we keep ourselves safe from attack. It seems pretty clear, though, which white feminists are using valuable ideas like intersectionality to advance their own careers and gain popularity, without an ounce of interest in movements towards ending oppression and with little understanding of structural inequality."

5 black women in history every egalitarian should know - Gail Wallace

"In a recent study of Black women’s leadership Ngunjiri, Gramby-Sobukwe, and Williams-Gegner note that “early preaching Black women were radical in their commitment to consistent egalitarianism and social justice within the Black church and community as well as society at large” and refer to them as “tempered radicals”... "

What is subversivism? - Julia Serano

"Subversivism is the practice of extolling certain gender and sexual expressions and identities simply because they are unconventional or nonconforming. In the parlance of subversivism, these atypical genders and sexualities are “good” because they “transgress” or “subvert” oppressive binary gender norms. The justification for the practice of subversivism has evolved out of a particular reading (although some would call it a misreading) of the work of various influential queer theorists over the last decade and a half."

No-one leaves or stays in church for the perfect reasons - Ed Cyzewski

"I also needed to read Introverts in the Church and Quiet as a way of explaining my discomfort in church. So much of my church experience had been shaped by the expectations and standards set by extroverts. We were always doing more stuff, meeting more people, attending more events, speaking in front of more people. The introvert in me just couldn’t keep up. Church felt like hard work, sucking the life out of me rather than renewing, strengthening, and, the favorite word of extrovert church leaders, “equipping” me."

Are you being TOO sex-positive? - Be Young & Shut Up

"Sex positivity is well-meaning, and a lot of its practices have helped to make people more comfortable with their sexuality. But its execution is flawed. Many are excluded or harmed by the community’s practices of the philosophy, and even the pure philosophy itself. Its monolithic identity means that if you take issue with sex positivity, you’re the stuffy patriarch enemy. The problems are such that sex-negative feminism has become a legitimate movement that, while it has its own serious problems, is just about as respectful of people’s sexual choices as sex positivity is."

The (possibly incoherent) ramblings of a guilty mum - Littlee & Bean

"Since going back to work I’ve learnt that sometimes I have to let go. I’ve learnt that sometimes it’s enough just to do my best. I’ve learnt that tending to my happiness and sanity is important. And I’ve learnt that immersing myself in the world that exists beyond the periphery of my motherhood experience, is key to my family’s happiness. I’m grateful that most of the time work keeps me sane."

A quick and dirty intro to black British feminism - Vimbai Dzimwasha

"However, after watching that amazing conversation between bell hooks and Melissa Harris Perry, I realised I desperately needed to find a feminism that reflected my specific experiences of being a black woman in Britain and navigating through issues of ‘black identity’, ‘black womanhood’, dual cultural identity among other issues. Black British Feminism."

This is a round-up

The Independent - Caring costs - but so do riots

"It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped."

Barbara Ehrenreich for CiF - How America criminalised poverty 
  
"In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalisation of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty. So concludes a recent study from the National Law Centre on Poverty and Homelessness, which finds that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with the harassment of the poor for more "neutral" infractions like jaywalking, littering, or carrying an open container."

Ekklesia - Rich thugs, poor thugs  

"I oppose the corporations who have looted the treasury through their tax avoidance, the bankers who assaulted society through the financial crash and the arms dealers who profit from selling weapons to tyrants. I oppose Cameron, Clegg and their gang of thugs who are launching a daily assault on the poorest members of society with their vicious cuts to public services and the welfare state."

Rachel Held Evans - My story is more interesting than that  

"I am not a supporting character in a story that a man is writing. 
My story is more interesting than that. 

I am not defined by my sexuality, my past, my marital status, or my body. 
My story is more interesting than that. 

I have not cried into my pillow waiting for someone else to give me purpose and direction in life. 
My story is more interesting than that." 

Elizabeth Esther - How to live a good love story: a top-eleven list for my daughters 

"1. Avoid advice from middle-aged, unmarried men who have yet to live one successful love story. 
2. Be wary of the man who always refers to women as “girls.”..."

Another Angry Woman - When not reporting a rape seems like a sensible option  

"Layla Ibrahim was attacked and raped by two men. She was courageous enough to report this to the police, even though the police had a track record of repeatedly arresting her twelve year old brother and failing her sister after a beating, due to being a mixed-race family in a predominately white area. Despite overwhelming forensic evidence, the police chose not to believe Layla. She was sent to prison for three years."

The F Word - When we are very wrong  

"We must always respect the lived experience of those we have privilege over, and take note when they take the time to tell us about it. So if a black woman challenges something racist said by a white woman, or a disabled woman challenges a disablist attitude, or a working class woman challenges middle class privilege, it is time to listen."

Thought Catalog - Surviving an 80s childhood  

"If you survived a childhood in the 80s, you’re probably starting to feel a bit long in the tooth, even though you’re not really. You just can’t help feeling old when you’re at a bar and you meet someone who was born in 1993. If you survived a childhood in the 80s, you may, from time to time, wonder what growing up with an iPhone, Katy Perry and the Internet must be like, and how you survived without all the things that seem so intrinsic to your survival now." 

Thought Catalog - Surviving a 90s puberty

"You wish could still throw your phone against a wall and it wouldn’t break. You miss how everything was riddled with layers of meaning, and you probably have a secret yearning for the earnestness of the decade that defined your coming of age. You revel in having grown up through the 90s, because it’s sort of like being part of a secret, special club that no one understands except the ones that were there with you, and even still they don’t really understand you; because despite your cynicism, you still hold onto a scrap of that poor, tortured, isolated, misunderstood soul a puberty in the 90s gave you."

Cosmopolitics - Fundamentally fearful fashion


"What’s ‘fun’ or ‘fearless’ (hah!) about feeling unable to wear even a loose, opaque, drapy garment without an expensive, uncomfortable underdress to control your unacceptable (and entirely natural) curves? Curves which you’re elsewhere instructed to ‘flaunt’: wearing nothing but a bra (‘be sure to flaunt the cutest of bras!’ Let’s infantilise feminine sexuality!) and an unbuttoned cardi, apparently, is a good idea."

Things worth paying attention to this week

Rachel Held Evans - The trouble with litmus tests

"I apply litmus tests to my fellow Christians because, for about five seconds, they make me feel better about my own decisions and beliefs. After those five seconds have passed, however, it becomes painfully obvious that my efforts at “fruit inspection” or “doctrinal correctness” are being seriously hampered by the massive log stuck in my eye."

From me on BitchBuzz - Help celebrate Emmeline Pankhurst's birthday

"This year, Manchester-based artist Charlotte Newson will be celebrating the birthday of the political activist, founder of the Women's Social and Political Union and feminist heroine with a special collaborative project."

National Geographic - Child Brides

"Child marriage spans continents, language, religion, caste. In India the girls will typically be attached to boys four or five years older; in Yemen, Afghanistan, and other countries with high early marriage rates, the husbands may be young men or middle-aged widowers or abductors who rape first and claim their victims as wives afterward, as is the practice in certain regions of Ethiopia."

Ekklesia - Britain's young people - sexualised, radicalised or patronised?

"Instead, consumerism promotes a narrow idea of what sexuality is all about. This is an image of sexuality that says a lot about money and little about love. Assumptions about what is acceptable have more to do with social convention than with compassion, consent or mutuality. The problem is not the sexualisation of childhood, but the commercialisation of sexuality."

Christian New Media Awards & Conference 2011 - Nominations are now open

Independent - How the right-wing press lost interest in Gabrielle Brown

"It’s a terrible thing to be cynical, but one could easily come away with the impression that these newspapers were only interested in Ms Browne’s opinions so long as they fitted with their own reactionary agenda on criminal justice."

Sarah Ditum for Comment is Free - To protect girls, women must have rights

"Sex-selection stories in the UK (when there isn't a urgent medical motive, like a hereditary sex-specific disease) tend to hinge on a parent's burning desire to have a child they can either kick a football at or cover in pink frills – reasoning that makes gender into a frivolous add-on in the quest to assemble a perfect family. But in the parts of the world that practise widespread sex-selective abortion, having a baby with the "wrong" genitals can be devastating."

Kathy Escobar - "Auntie Kathy, are you sure it’s not wrong for you to be a pastor?"

"You see, the 'we don’t really value your voice' message goes far beyond just whether or not women preach or teach. It’s the subtle ways women don’t have equal power, leadership, value, or voice, where entire generations of misogyny are built upon a few passages of scripture and the liberating message of Jesus gets lost."

Petition - Stop the deportation of Betty Tibakawa

"Betty Tibakawa has had her asylum application turned down and is facing deportation back to Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal. Gay women who are deported to Uganda risk being raped and assaulted whilst they are in custody. We are petitioning the Home Office to overrule this decision from the UK Border Agency, to give Betty the chance to live a life free from violence and fear. No one should be deported to country where they will be persecuted for their sexuality. We owe those seeking asylum in this country better than this."

One Off Productions - It began with name calling (scroll down for parts 1 through 5)

"I have a friend called Etta. She is a Holocaust survivor. It has taken her many years to be able to talk about her experiences. Now she does. She believes that she has to. To try and prevent Holocausts. She does it in memory of those she lost to the gas chambers and all those who she saw die. She does not want to let them down. Recently she learned of the EDL. She asked me if I would help her write this. This was her idea. It is the hardest thing that I have ever written. The bold is a simple version of horror that has happened. The rest are comments that have come from the Face Book pages of the EDL."

Gender Across Borders - "Boys will be boys" - and other language which rigidifies our conceptions of masculinity

"Unsurprisingly, women-centered idioms and expressions tend to be derogatory, as is the case with ‘run like a girl.’ This is, once again, an expression that is used to remind boys that in order to be real boys, they must at all costs avoid behavior that might be perceived as feminine."

More Than Toast - I am NOT a mumpreneur

"I don’t need to be congratulated or patronised. I thrive on juggling all my balls and I get so much more out of life and my daughter because of it. I understand my view is in the extreme and may touch a nerve with some, but to me the term ‘Mumpreneur’ is condescending, patronising and outdated."

Yo Daily Express - your racism's showing

Today's Express hate: coming soon to a far-right blog near you as 'proof' of the way this country's going to hell in a handcart.

EDIT: Not everyone was as busy as I was yesterday and therefore you can read this post over at Minority Thought which goes into more detail about the story - and the fact that the Express has managed to turn a story about healthcare professionals speaking English into a story about its apparent problem with healthcare professionals who aren't white British.

Mail Fail of the Day

The Daily Mail reports on Asda's new range of Asian clothing for women - believed to be the first collection of its kind available on the high street.

As we all know, a story like this is guaranteed to have the Mail's most bigoted readers mopping their brows and asking for the smelling salts and the comments definitely don't disappoint. You can just imagine 'David, Darlington' foaming at the mouth as he typed:

'Ok - another appeaser off my list of places to shop. No doubt alongside halal meat, barbaric!!'

There you have it - it's not just a cause for outrage, it's barbaric. Presumably David's good friends with the person who claimed that the results of a recent survey of teachers asking which names they associated with naughty children signalled feral Britain at its finest!.

'Tailgunner, Essex' makes a mistake common to Mail readers and confuses the word 'Asian' with 'Muslim' as he or she furiously types:

'A turning point indeed! The islamic colonization of our country shows no sign of slowing down, infact it's gathering pace as the tipping point approaches.'

'John B, Wakefield' is so incensed that he suggests that everyone living in the UK should wear clothing personally approved by him:

'Sorry, but isn't ASDA aware of the existing social problem of Asians failing to integrate ? I believe that this is an ill conceived idea, as our Asian residents should be adopting western clothing as the norm whilst living in the UK.

I wonder if he'd feel the same and swap his 'Western clothing' for the clothes of a different culture if he moved abroad? Somehow I doubt it.

My absolute favourite, however, comes from the no doubt charming and personable 'Sue Daley, England':

'So, no patriotism allowed, no free-speech allowed, don't mention the BNP, don't complain about green-belt building to accommodate the influx, don't dare say you're a Christian, don't complain that your local church is now a mosque, don't be alarmed if your local town now looks like Islamabad. For Gawd's sake, is there no end to the destruction of Englishness? When I shop in an English shop, I want to see English things.....is that so hard to understand? Asda, you've seen the last of Mrs. Daley's lolly.'

Presumably she didn't get the memo when Asda became part of WALMART in 1999.

I'm holding out for the comment which ends England has gone to the dogs. I'm glad I moved to Spain when I had the chance!. The only thing worse than a bigoted, racist Daily Mail reader is a bigoted, racist, expat Daily Mail reader.

Further reading:
Do Mail commenters create a toxic environment for brands?
Asian clothes makes Daily Mail readers' heads explode